It was a bustling weekend across Europe where opinion polls and predictive analyses took centre stage, guiding both political parties and the electorate in their strategic manoeuvres leading up to the elections. Now, all eyes are on the results to determine if the political landscape was accurately forecasted and what implications lie ahead for the European Union.
We delved deeper into the lessons and implications of the European Parliamentary (EP) election results in our Aftermath article series. Previously, we also assessed what data predicted ahead of the EP elections. Now, we’ll focus on what data got right, where it went wrong and what the results reveal about its limitations.
Seat allocation projection
Looking at the latest projection for the EP, released on June 3rd, Euractiv’s aggregator came remarkably close to the actual outcome, demonstrating a minimal margin of error. Aside from a few plus-minus seats for the political groups, the ranking of the majorities was projected with high accuracy. The traditional EPP and S&D parties are still maintaining their strong influence in the parliament, securing 186 and 135 seats, respectively. This outcome is even better than predicted, especially considering the significant fears of the far-right ascendance in the parliament.
Latest projection by Euractiv on 3rd of June
EP provisional results as of 10th of June, 16:14
The total number of seats projected for the far-right European family groups turned out to be lower than anticipated. While it is true that the conservative ECR gained 4 more seats than their 2019 composition, and 9 extra seats were allocated to the nationalist ID (even if the party lost a significant share once with the decision to expel the Germany’s AfD from the political family), the initial projections had been far more ambitious for these groups.
It is also true that the losers of this round were the progressive Greens, which lost 18 seats compared to the previous setup, and the Renew group, whose loss was far the greatest, with 23 seats. However, all the polls correctly predicted this decline.
What remains uncertain now is how the other unaffiliated groups will behave. They secured a higher number of seats than initially forecasted. However, this discrepancy isn’t entirely the fault of the data. Many newcomers or independents who scored favourably locally earned a ticket to the European Parliament without yet joining a political family. Their current 55-seat setup might eventually align with the existing EP groups, slightly altering the overall configuration, but unlikely to significantly shift the majority dynamics.
However, the 45 seats of the hardline unaffiliated group will most probably remain unchanged. Its core composition includes 15 members of Germany’s far-right AfD, 10 members of Hungary’s illiberal FIDESZ and 5 members of Slovakia’s far-left Smer. While a spectrum of extremes exists within the group, making it difficult to reach consensus, they might find unity in their shared experience of expulsion.
Voter turnout stagnant
Despite all the campaigning efforts to encourage people to vote, especially among the youth, it didn’t seem to have a significant impact on the turnout rate. This year’s attendance rate was not significantly higher than the previous cycle, with a (preliminary) score of 50.97 percent turnout in 2024, compared with 50.66 percent in 2019.
Interestingly, Croatia experienced its lowest voter turnout rate for EP elections, also holding the lowest rate EU-wide. This comes as surprising for a country that recently joined the EU, Schengen area and adopted the central currency, while other countries still remain on hold for such integration. It seems that the EU enthusiasm has not yet reached the Croatians.
Poland and Spain also experienced significantly lower turnout rates for the EP elections. However, this phenomenon is intriguing for both countries when assessing the potential impact of absenteeism coming in advantage for populist parties.
In Spain, Vox scored 9.62 percent in the EP elections, while the latest opinion poll assessed the local support of the party at 12.5 percent. Perhaps the discrepancy in this round is due to the increased support of the newcomer SALF (Se Acabó La Fiesta), which secured 4.59 percent of the vote, consequently earning 3 seats in the EP.
Similarly, in Poland, the Civic Coalition leads with 37.06 percent, while the conservative PiS came in second with 36.16 percent. According to the latest opinion polls, Poland’s Third Way was in third place with 11.6 percent, while the far-right Confederation followed with a 9 percent support ahead of the EP elections. Currently, according to the EP results, the Polish far-right formation secured 6 seats with 12.08 percent of the vote, while only 6.91 percent went to the Third Way, resulting in 3 seats, joining both the EPP and Renew formations.
Croatians were rather moderate in their vote, despite their minimal turnout rate.
The low turnout rate in Poland may be attributed to the frequency of elections in the country. This round of European election marks the third vote in Poland within eight months, preceded by parliamentary elections last October and local elections in April. Jan Kubik, Director of the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London explains the phenomenon: “The lower turnout will mean that people are, as I suspect, more focused on crucial domestic issues. Higher turnout means that people are translating those domestic issues more broadly to the EU”.
The voter apathy perspective can also explain the low turnout rates in other countries with similar backgrounds, such as Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Croatia. Belgium, Hungary, and Romania were the only countries that held parallel federal and local elections simultaneously with the EP round. As a result, these countries saw an increase in voter turnout compared to 2019.
Where the data went wrong
Impressive in the voting turnout was the case of Germany, whose national turnout actually increased by 3 percent compared to the previous round, despite lowering the voting age to 16 years old for the first time.
Fears were high regarding whom the youth would vote for, and studies have shown that extremist formations in the country gained traction with this demographic. However, a recent poll by Infrates Dimap assessed how the 16-24 age group voted in this election round.
While support for the progressive Greens indeed decreased significantly for this group by -23 percent compared to 2019, and increased by 11 percent for the extremist AfD formation, it came as a surprise that the German youth’s vote showed strong support for the centrist union CDU, while casting the most votes for other smaller political formations, including satirical parties like Die Partei or the environmentalists Tierschutzpartei (alas, The party for animal protection), which received 2 and 1 seat(s) respectively in the new EP setup.
Moreover, when comparing the results of the EP elections of populist parties with the latest national opinion polls, Austria’s FPÖ, Finland’s PS, Italy’s M5S, the Netherlands’ PVV, Portugal’s Chega, Spain’s Vox and Sweden’s SD have all significantly underperformed. While it is true that all the above-mentioned conservative to radical parties secured places in the European Parliament, their forecasted influence was overestimated.
This comes as very optimistic news when understanding that although angered by the current establishment, the support of these far-right parties is not entirely secured, making voters actually susceptible to swing to a more moderate vote in an actual election rather than merely indicating their support in a hypothetical situation, as opinion polls usually frame.
Where data was right, but not listened to
The biggest political earthquake is currently happening in France, shaking the very foundations of the nation’s leadership. President Macron’s decision to dissolve the current parliament in response to the far-right RN’s victory reflects the gravity of the situation. Despite Macron’s efforts to counter the far-right surge, Le Pen’s party has consistently been in the lead for the EP elections since the latest round, also gaining momentum for the National Assembly seats particularly after Macron’s contentious pension reforms last year. Amidst this political turbulence, Macron’s approval ratings continue to plummet, underscoring widespread discontent with his leadership. The high support for Le Pen’s party in this EP round can be seen as a fine “protest vote”, in French style, against both the national leadership and the European Union.
The surge in support for Le Pen’s party was, of course, staggering, but not something that data was unable to forecast.
And while President Macron is now placing a high bet on the national legislative elections that will take place at the end of this month, the most up-to-date opinion polls still place the far-right Rassemblement National as leading with 35 percent, followed by the left-alliance with 22 percent, and only 19 percent for Macron’s Renaissance and his allies. Although the numbers may vary slightly, the ranking remains the same as in the EP results.
Similarly, the decision of Belgian PM Alexander De Croo to resign following the disappointing results of his party, Open VLD, was not surprising. Opinion polls consistently indicated that the far-right, anti-immigration Vlaams Belang was the leading political force in the country. However, a few weeks before the federal election, support for the far-right party shifted to the moderate-right N-VA. Although Croo’s formation saw an increase in seat projections recently, it was never in a leading position. Open VLD gained just 7 seats in the federal parliamentary constituency, with a local score of 5.45 percent and 5.76 percent in the EP elections.
On a similar note, the decline of Germany’s SPD and Greens is not a shock for the parties either. Both formations have been on a steep decline, according to all opinion polls.
A recent study by Infratest Dimap illustrated how most of the disillusioned voters with Scholz’s leadership redirected their votes to both the extreme-right AfD and the newcomer extreme-left BSW. An estimated 1.4 million votes originally supporting the SPD were analysed to be redirected to the centrist union, possibly in an attempt to counter the rise of the far-right. Most remarkably, a large portion of supporters of the leftist formation chose not to cast their vote at all, with a staggering number close to 2.5 million. Despite this, the SPD failed to effectively garner support from any other German political formation.
The same story goes for the German Greens, whose significant share of secured votes were either redirected to the Union or were not cast at all.
According to the German research group, the only party who was able to attract disenchanted voters was the new formation BSW. However, its performance was not particularly strong, given the significant total number of people who chose not to vote.
If polling data had been implemented correctly in the campaign strategy, perhaps Germany’s left-progressive parties would have performed better. However, in Germany as well elsewhere across Europe, all campaign efforts focused primarily on stifling the rise of far-right parties rather than promoting policies that would appeal to their disillusioned voters.
Where data ends and the new-far right members begins
Crafting coalitions and achieving consensus poses a daunting task for the leading politicians. Europe now faces a choice: resist populist groups and reaffirm commitment to European values, or risk policy stagnation in an attempt to please everyone. However, if the protest vote hypothesis holds true, failure to address the desired “change” may only fuel a stronger populist presence in the next election cycle.
The significant number of populist parties sent to the EP reflects not just disillusionment but also a protest vote, particularly in countries like France, Austria and Italy. Results have shown that voters across Europe have turned away from green and progressive groups this time, signalling their desire for a change from the status-quo that the current political class was not able to deliver. Far-right parties capitalised on this sentiment in their campaigning, promising radical change with seemingly easy solutions.
On the bright side, the EPP and S&D emerged as clear winners again, signalling that Europe is still in good hands. Both the hard progressives and far-right groups hold nearly equal footing as the second-largest minorities. Reaching consensus in the new setup will be challenging, but the cause is not lost.
